Back in 2006 I decided to cook all 1293 recipes in "The Gourmet Cookbook." It took a few years, but I made them all! Now I have moved on to the over 1100 recipes in "Gourmet Today." I anticipate several more years of kitchen fun!

I have been putting off making this salad because the recipe is incredibly fussy, but I am running out of green salads in The Book, so I figured it was time to make this one. I went in to it a bit biased against this salad. The recipe calls for five different types of salad greens, most of them in ridiculously small quantities (e.g. 1/4 of a head of iceberg lettuce). So although the salad is just greens and dressing, it requires a lot of groceries. The other very fussy aspect is that you are instructed to rub some cut garlic on some stale bread, toss the salad with the stale bread piece, and then remove the bread. This is supposed to give a crucial hint of garlic to the dish, which I couldn't really taste. Despite these complaints though, the salad was good. The five different greens provided a nice balance of bitterness and mellowness. The variety also provided textural interest. The tarragon dressing was mild but tasty. Overall it was a lovely, refined salad, but I'm not completely convinced it was worth the fuss (and the purchasing of 5 kinds of salad greens!).

I was out in Framingham this evening, visiting with Michael. I started crying while making quinoa. Michael was napping, and Chris was checking on her. I was standing alone in the kitchen, stirring my quinoa, and I just became overwhelmed.

It's so good to be there though. Every time I set foot in that house I feel so inspired by the obvious and tremendous love of family and friends there. After Michael woke up, she and I, along with Chris, Renato, and Ephriam, crowded onto the sofa, root beer floats in hand, and watched a seriously questionable TV show. Despite the cancer, and all the sadness, that moment was perfect...